Strategic Management of Emerging Technologies in NATO: A Framework for Foresight, Innovation, and Ethical Integration

Abstract

The fast rise of artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems, and quantum technologies is changing the strategic context of national security. This paper examines how NATO countries can utilize new and Emerging Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) to enhance security and resilience across the Alliance. Using a multi-theoretical framework that combines dynamic capability theory, strategic foresight, military innovation, and technology governance, this discussion explores ways NATO could sense, seize upon, and transform itself in response to technological disruption. This article uses an exploratory qualitative design that combines policy and document analysis to examine institutional policy and lived stakeholder experiences related to technology integration and innovation management. The major issues emerging include variations in capacity for strategic foresight across member states that lead to bureaucratic inertia when some hold back others who want to move forward, put more fragmentation on already piecemeal interoperability standards, and add even more barriers because ethical normative differences are treated as if they belong elsewhere but weigh indeed. Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund infrastructure notwithstanding, national procurement laws, security clearance regimes, and ethical misalignments limit their impacts. Responding to this analysis, therefore, requires proposing a strategic management approach under a four-pillar model that includes strategic foresight, organizational agility, capability integration, and ethical governance. A few of the recommendations are the establishment of a NATO-wide Joint Foresight and Technology Assessment Center, together with harmonization of dual-use procurement procedures, as well as the requirement for mandated national AI ethics frameworks in conformity with alliance-wide interoperability goals. These are steps toward making NATO adaptive and innovative under collective security postures while technological change is accelerated.